"There! Didn't I tell you?" the janitor commented triumphantly, at the reply that he had not. And he added, with a burst of ill-natured laughter, "The people, the sovereign people—pah!"
Monsalvat invited the fellow to leave him alone with the tenant.
"How much did you pay this month?" he inquired when the man was gone.
Foreseeing a raise in her rent, the woman put her apron to her eyes and began wailing about the poverty, debts, and sickness in her family. Monsalvat repeated his question.
"Twenty pesos," she replied, trembling.
Monsalvat had ordered his caretaker to reduce the rents by a half, and his face flashed with anger. The woman, however, misinterpreted her landlord's expression, which she thought due to surprise at the smallness of the sum. Now, surely, he was going to raise the rent. Oh, this America!
So from apartment to apartment Monsalvat went on pushing his inquiries. Some of the tenants were not in, but he managed to visit a dozen or more of them. It was the same story everywhere. He hurried down to the superintendent's quarters and ordered him to assemble all the tenants in the courtyard. When they had gathered there, he denounced the trickery of his agent and discharged him on the spot.
"Your rents are reduced by one-half," he then explained to the crowd. "But this will not be for long, because I am going to make some expensive alterations. I want you to be comfortable in clean homes, with plenty of air and sunlight. I want you to live like human beings, and not like animals. When the contractors begin work here you will probably have to move to some other house; but later when this building has been made a fit and pleasant place to live in, you can return here."